We've Got The Whole World In Our Hands!
There is a sublimely beautiful phrase in Hebrew.....
"Tikkun Olam"
it means
" Healing the World One Act of Righteousness at a Time"
To say we live in a world that is desperately sick is an understatement to be sure. Read any newspaper any day any place in the world and you see the symptoms of a world completely gone awry.
SIN RUNS RAMPANT!
War, Murders, Robberies, Diseases, Famines, Fraud, on and on and on we see not only SIN but the effect of sin on our Kosmos, Our WORLD!
Again SIN RUNS RAMPANT!
BUT
TIKKUN OLAM calls for RIGHTEOUSNESS TO RUN RAMPANT IN THIS WORLD!
Can you wrap your mind around THAT? That YOU AND I are called to be the very AGENTS OF GOD IN HEALING THE WORLD BY ALLOWING ACTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS TO RUN RAMPANT THROUGH ****US****!!!!!!
Jesus plainly commanded it!
Matthew 5:16 KJV
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Think about THAT ! That if we would demonstrate GOOD WORKS the RESULT would be that the FATHER WOULD BE GLORIFIED BY MEN!!!!!! I can speak to this from experience as a Son of God who spent years in the Middle East going through the Gulf War and the Intifada. We endeavoured to do much more than just wear long sleeves and short sideburns. But surrounded by hundreds of thousands of uprooted men and women boys and girls, homeless, hungry, scared, the saints at First Apostolic Church in Amman saw that and just knew WE CAN'T SEE THESE PEOPLE AND DO ***NOTHING*** We must do SOMETHING. (Emphasis really on the DO!)
OUR solution was to start a Christian School which really was MUCH MORE than that! We went door to door up the mountains and down the mountains, storage shed to storage shed (really! Some of these people were living like five to ten to a STORAGE SHED! People who ONCE had lived in four and five bedroom homes with airconditioning, two car garages, nice furniture who because of WAR had been reduced to misery and uncertainty. We came with a HOLY GHOST SMILE ****AND**** Some real genuine tangible HELP! We told them that we knew they were only going to be in Jordan TEMPORARILY but that we would LOVE to invite them to place their children in our Christian School FREE OF CHARGE where they would be offerred courses such as Mathematics, English, History etc., and that OF COURSE since the kids would NOT be home during the morning or noon hours that WE WOULD FEED THEM Breakfast and Lunch. The parents would grab our hands and kiss them they were that moved!
And then the "ICING ON THE CAKE" was that realizing that the parents were every bit as hungry as the kids we would throw in "Of course I know you're very busy BUT if you could come and help us at least at breakfast and lunch to feed all these crazy kids, it would be such a BIG HELP TO US!"
That was REALLY how the revival in Jordan Broke out! JORDANIAN men and women who ininitially had written us off as a CULT saw that WE WERE THE ***ONLY*** ONES ACTUALLY ****DOING**** something for these poor people! And not just the Christian Jordanians but the MUSLIMS saw our "good works" and very quickly began coming in, repenting and being baptized in Jesus Name and receiving the Holy Ghost! TODAY the fruit of that obedience to demonstrate GOOD WORKS is spread all over the Middle East, North Africa, Australia, North America, Europe and South America! TIKKUN OLAM! HEALING THE WORLD ONE RIGHTEOUS ACT AT A TIME!
Some say isn't that the "SOCIAL GOSPEL " ??? NOPE THAT'S JESUS GOSPEL! In fact it is the VERY PURPOSE THAT GOD CREATED THE CHURCH!
Ephesians 2:10 KJV
And then the "ICING ON THE CAKE" was that realizing that the parents were every bit as hungry as the kids we would throw in "Of course I know you're very busy BUT if you could come and help us at least at breakfast and lunch to feed all these crazy kids, it would be such a BIG HELP TO US!"
That was REALLY how the revival in Jordan Broke out! JORDANIAN men and women who ininitially had written us off as a CULT saw that WE WERE THE ***ONLY*** ONES ACTUALLY ****DOING**** something for these poor people! And not just the Christian Jordanians but the MUSLIMS saw our "good works" and very quickly began coming in, repenting and being baptized in Jesus Name and receiving the Holy Ghost! TODAY the fruit of that obedience to demonstrate GOOD WORKS is spread all over the Middle East, North Africa, Australia, North America, Europe and South America! TIKKUN OLAM! HEALING THE WORLD ONE RIGHTEOUS ACT AT A TIME!
Some say isn't that the "SOCIAL GOSPEL " ??? NOPE THAT'S JESUS GOSPEL! In fact it is the VERY PURPOSE THAT GOD CREATED THE CHURCH!
Ephesians 2:10 KJV
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Thank God for the personal Life Style directives God gives us that help us to walk modestly in an immodest world BUT THAT IS NOT THE END OF IT! ***DOING*** something to impact someone else is ESSENTIAL to being the People of Healing that GOD has ordained us to be! In THAT LIGHT the promise "THEY SHALL LAY THEIR HANDS UPON THE SICK AND THEY SHALL BE HEALED" takes on a whole new MAJORLY UPGRADED SCALE OF MEANING !
Thank God for the personal Life Style directives God gives us that help us to walk modestly in an immodest world BUT THAT IS NOT THE END OF IT! ***DOING*** something to impact someone else is ESSENTIAL to being the People of Healing that GOD has ordained us to be! In THAT LIGHT the promise "THEY SHALL LAY THEIR HANDS UPON THE SICK AND THEY SHALL BE HEALED" takes on a whole new MAJORLY UPGRADED SCALE OF MEANING !
James 1:27 KJV
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
TIKKUN OLAM! THINK ABOUT IT!
Praise the Lord Bro., great post. I agree with you one hundred percent, thank God for (holiness) righteousness and modesty. Our righteousness is for a lost and dying world to see there is hope. We have a mandate from God to "go" into all the world, to be salt and light, and take our spiritual authority (exousia matt. 21:23) , we are saints and fellow citizens of the household of God. Thank you for your post.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post as always, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminder of the challenge!
Love you much - The Joneses
This one made me cry...I just got home from a business trip in China and found myself crying in the evenings after walking the streets seeing crippled children begging on the sidewalks. I kept thinking of the verse Psalm 37:25 "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread" knowing those children had never had the chance to become children of God. I kept asking God what could be done...both for their physical and spiritual hunger.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great post...more food for thought in the aftermath of that trip.